Paul Hartley admits 'it feels like a defeat' after Hartlepool United were denied their first league win of the season

Pools were within two minutes of claiming their first three points of the season after Wes McDonald scored his second league goal in as many games in the first half before substitute Beryly Lubala snatched what was a deserved point for the home side deep into added on time when powering a header beyond Ben Killip.

“I’m really disappointed not to get the three points today,” said Hartley.

“I thought we were fine in the first half. We were in control of the game. Second half we had to manage it a bit better.

“But if you don’t concentrate for that one moment in the game you can get punished and we did.

“It feels life a defeat. I know it’s a point, but we wanted three today and we thought we had three. But when you don’t defend the box [you’ll get punished].

"But to be fair to the defenders, they defended for the majority of the game really well. They were under pressure for periods of the game but they coped with that.”

Hartley was forced into handing a first league start to loan striker Jack Hamilton at the Jobserve Community Stadium after Josh Umerah and Mikael Ndjoli both missed the trip to Essex through injury.

And after the 22-year-old was substituted in the second half, Hartley was left with no real out-and-out striker on the pitch having been left frustrated in his pursuit of one in the closing stages of transfer window.

“That’s what happens sometimes when you’re under the cosh and you cannot keep the ball. You’ve got to keep the ball better. You cannot just keep forcing it long with the type of players we had on the pitch,” said Hartley.

“We were going with wingers and No.10’s and trying to play them up front because that’s all we had.

“We had two of our strikers missing and one came off. We wanted to try and add to that top end of the pitch but we couldn’t do it.”